Sky
by La Editor
Summary: A series of unrelated one-shots about the man and the fairy-girl, and everything under the sun that keeps them together.
1. Apple

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**Sky**

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Rikku. Auron. To them what is theirs... and probably isn't. She did always like stealing things. A series of one-shots focusing around their unique relationship.

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Title: Apple  
Theme_:_ Red  
Summary_:_ Rikku, on picking up apples, red as overcoats from days long past. It sucks to have what you're trying to move on move with you... in most cases.

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Apple

Okay, okay, okay, so you wanna know something _really funny_?

(And when I mean really funny, I mean in a sort of smiley way, that sort of hurts a little, too, just a little bit and only a little, but but it's enough-)

I used to remind myself.

I didn't _mean _to, it just sort of _happened. _I would see a flower, I would eat a cherry, I would be painting a customized sword (I always did a really good job, too, I was always sort of fascinated with his bracers, myself), I would snatch up an apple and see myself in that shiny, barely-there reflection, and I would see myself in red and it would hurt, a little.

But after a little while, after I nearly killed myself with it, I just kept picking up those apples and it started to fade. My chest wouldn't pound so much, and it started to feel less like there was something small and warped and angry jumping out my throat and more like... well, there _wasn't_ something small and warped and angry jumping out my throat. Points to Rikku for being the best poet ever.

But eventually, eventually I could see a red jacket or balloon and it wouldn't remind me. Sometimes it did, but I could get that image of lights out of my head, that image of a man bursting into a _thousand million bajillion_ balls of light and he _didn't even say goodbye_, not really, but finally I could shove that out my ear and think of him reprimanding Tidus for hitting a hornet nest with his blitzball again or think of a deep, full and rich laugh, one that never came out often, or teasing him that if he forget to shave, one morning he would wake up and wouldn't be able to find his face behind a mass of grossness facial hair—

Alright, okay. Hold your chocobos, Rikku, I know that's what you're saying. Here. Let me try to backtrack.

See, I cried and cried and cried when Auron, legendary guardian and hero and all of that good stuff that he didn't really like in the first place, died.

Well, not _died. _The truth is, the guy had died _ten years earlier. _And you're probably saying, 'how in the world could you be sad about _that_? Wouldn't he be, like, a zombie?' Which would be kind of cool, actually. I mean, getting turned into a zombie was really lame in a cool way: your skin turned this really gross shade of green that was pretty cool to poke, and - no, anyway, if he had been a zombie, all we'd need was one good Holy Water and he'd be good to go and right as rain. But that wasn't it, because there are never any fiends anymore, much less fiends who can turn you into zombies.

He was dead - well, that's silly. If he still moved, and talked, and ate, and his skin wasn't blue and sagging and being eaten by grossness termites, then I guess you wouldn't call him dead. But he had died. He didn't let himself go, because he still had things to do and miles to walk and he couldn't sleep, not just yet, and it took ten years but he finally let himself rest. But I cried when he let himself go. Which is sort-of the same thing, right?

That was our story. My story. His story, and Yuna's story and Tidus and Wakka's story, and the story of a couple of other people you wouldn't know. Maybe people you'll never meet. And that's fine. But it's sort of not, too, in a little way because why did we survive the Heartless when they couldn't—?

(Story for another time. Nevermind, I won't bother.)

Anyway.

Me 'n Yunie 'n Paine sort of got _shrunk _in the whole aftermath of the magic combining the worlds. And somehow learned to _fly, _which is wicked cool.It makes up for the complete and utter lack of human bodies _almost. _But still not really. But that's okay – don't sweat the small stuff, you know? (Oh, oh! Don't tell me, I know, _that's a pun. _How hysterically _funny_. Not that I'm a little _sensitive _about that subject, _never._)

Either way, it was sort of nice that one day, I could just pick up an apple and think, _what a nice apple. _Or even if I did think _this is the exact shade of that stupid red coat_, I could totally smile and feel that smile on the inside and out.

(Heeey, you wanna know something else that's sort of funny? I know this is off-topic, but I was just thinking about this - Yunie asked me once how my big red-orange-yellow scarf doesn't _choke _me to death, 'cause the scarf is like my _wings_, and I think that's actually a pretty good question—)

My scarf has a little red in it, too.

It's not my favorite color. My favorite color has and always will be yellow and orange, depending on my mood, if I'm hungry, and how sunny it is or the color of my underwear-

But red is my favorite color to look at. And _not _because of him, because I'm not way weak like that. I just like looking at it, have always liked looking at it, and that's just another incentive. That's all. Really.

Anyway, so the Gullwings have been hanging around Hollow Bas- _Radiant Gardens,_ I mean; it's a nice place. Lots of flowers, way true to its namesake, a little overpowering at times but still real nice. Reminds me of my mama a little, only she never smelt like flowers, and she never had them around either, just maybe the way she smiled and the way her hands braided my hair when I was little (she's gone, by the way, but that was before the Heartless and let's not talk about this).

Anyway, us three Totally Amazing Fairies of Everything Cool have been helping Leon and Aerith and Cid and Yuffie and Merlin out a little, in return for room and board. Not that they would mind, really, just set us up in a _closet _and we'd be fine. Well, okay, no. I mean, we'd fit just fine, but I'd really rather not live in a closet. Full of cleaning supplies and mops and stuff, just grossness. We're set up in an extra bedroom because Aerith is extra nice and buys us sea-salt ice cream when she isn't helping old man Merlin thinker around with fire spells.

We were there when Sora, whirlwind extraordinare right behind Yuffie, ran into the house. He was wearing all red, everywhere, and that flash of red from the corner of my eye made that one second the very best second in my life, and I turned and it was Sora, and I picked up an apple and it _hurt_, it hurt bad. I realized my own mistake and all I really wanted to do after that _- really _wanted to do, like you want to _so much_ you could cry and throw a hissy-fit over it and curl into a big ball of weeping five-year-old - all I wanted was to be _me _again, the size of Yuffie, and pick up a wrench and some metal and wires and oil and get down and dirty like I've always done, working away to make something amazing with my hands and focus so completely that it would just _go away_, go away and leave me alone because I'm not _ready for this yet—_

I don't know why it hit me like that. Like Wakka getting completely KO'd by a pissed-off Lulu (you don't know her? Don't ask me—) or getting completely mauled by a Berserked Tidus with his heaviest sword or getting a pound of bricks dumped on your _face_. (Scratch that last part. _That was so totally meant to sound serious._) I don't know why it hit me hard like all that.

But it did, and I think my face just sort of went real pale or something, because Yuna got all worried all of a sudden and Paine just sort of watched her fuss over me with a little bit of concern but mostly just a raised eyebrow like she knew _exactly _what made me clutch my mini-fied claw so tight that my knuckles went ghost white and made my palms bleed a little.

Yuna sort of figured, though. I mean, I kept telling her I was _fine_, but she sort of figured anyway because Yunie is real smart and observational and just sort of has this uncanny ability to _know_, so when I couldn't get to sleep in my little bed (Aerith had convinced Cid to make us little wooden beds, like the ones you make for dolls – it's sort of insulting but Aerith only wants us to be comfortable, which is real sweet so we don't mind), at one o'clock in the morning Yuna quietly got out of her own little wooden bed and drifted over, elegant and pretty and lovely and a little spunky and everything that is Yuna, and my half-awake mind registered that she had put her hand on top of mine, smiling gently and a little sadly and I didn't - well, I mean, my eyes got some dust in them and - well - I broke down and bawled like a baby. There. I said it.

Yunie is real good about stuff like that, though. So she just held me like I was some retarded fairy-baby and then she started singing.

Some people don't have singing voices. Other people have voices that were made to sing, like that was their Divine Purpose in life or something - guess which one Yunie was? Well, duh, the second, because Yuna is just like that. And sometimes people sing really lame songs that you never remember and don't really care about, but again, not the case. Yuna sang the hymn.

And I loved her more than ever for it.

It's the prettiest song ever, too, I don't care what you say because you don't count because you don't _know _- a short little hymn, sung by (this is going to sound _way weird_, promise you won't laugh) the spirits of our ancestors. They sacrificed their souls and everything that comes with being dead (well, if you believe in that kind of stuff - we did, because it was a given and we could see it with our own eyes) to help us. Guide us. Too pretty for words, and I don't think I could describe it in a million years, but there it is. Right on the list of the top ten on any world _ever_. It's just – when the spirits sang it, it was like they were reaching _into you _to pull something out and you felt good about it. It was like they were singing for you and only you, and like they were telling you that you are _you_, that they _loved _you for you. They _loved _you.

They had to rest, though. We helped them go back to sleep. And I think we all sort of miss it sometimes, but we still all know the song like – like it's weaved into us like we're weird, half-finished crochet-people, even me. Like it's sort of knitted into what makes me _me_, you know?

So Yuna singing it for me – that just made me feel better. I'll never hear the Fayth sing again, but it's the memory and being reminded. It just feels good. I dreamt of red.

I dream of that a lot. I dream of yellow and white and orange and purple and red, of singing and machines and things from _my _life. A lot of the time, though? It's red. I don't know why. But it's still sort of there – like, like I can move on but it sort of moves with me, away from the pain but it's still there. And I don't mind that. (I doubt I'll find any guy _this small _anyway. Just thought I'd throw that out there.)

So imagine my surprise when Sora comes prancing in, happy as a clam like usual, prancing in to visit and telling us all about how some guy he met who finally got away from Hades, and oh yes, the guy is dressed all in red, name is Auron, have you ever heard of him?

Well, I think I just sort of sat there and it seemed like nothing was really _there_, you know? Everything was sort of dizzy but not really, just all way unreal and then Yuna came in front of me and timidly waved a hand in front of my eyes, smiling a little unsurely and saying _Rikku… are you okay? You're a little pale…_

And I just sort of blinked at her. And she said, she said _Sora just said… just said he's back. Auron. Auron, Rikku._

And then I think I sort of just spun up and whooped like I was on a machina high, racing through the streets of Bevelle and throwing flash-bombs to make a cool teenage Al Bhed rebel statement to those dorkus Yevonites, Yuna smiling as I buzzed over like a tornado to the boy with chocobo hair to demand he tell me _everything, _and he just sort of went _Oh, you know him? _

Like _hell _I knew him, I practically _made out with the guy_—

Oh.

You weren't supposed to know that.

…Nevermind. It was sort of a secret. Age difference that would make some people freak a little (like my pops! and Shiva, even if he was the lamest of the lame I really miss him), you know?

But I just sort of laughed and landed on the table, laughed and laughed, laughed so hard that my eyes were streaming.

"Take me," I more or less _threatened _the poor kid, and he blinked and said, _sure, Rikku-boss_, only not really. Okay, he said _I guess you can come if you want to, Rikku. _I think he thought I was a little crazy, maybe. Probably. But I laughed and sort of choked but kept laughing with my swirly green eyes all watery from laughing so hard and hugged him around the neck – couldn't really hug him anywhere else, _I hate being small _– and I picked up an apple that was red as a coat, and it was all good.

(Oh, right – later? We went to the Underdrome, and he was right there, still red all over with a sword and one dark wood eye, so I walked up to him, cool as you please – _who am I kidding? _I swooped straight over, barreled all less than thirty-two ounces of me straight into him, grinning so much I thought my teeth would fall out, nabbed him in the nose and then kissed his cheek.)

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This is a series of unrelated one-shots (unless specified), taken from the 100 Themes Livejournal community key_blade, all about Auron and Rikku. It's possible. Really. Just look at the FFX section of FF if you don't believe me (notwithstanding that Rikku is, well, not a fairy there). Also: wow, guys, they finally fixed the character listings! There is now... Rikku, Riku Replica, and Riku. Wow. Good job, Square, no comments needed. ;]

Anyway, we'll see where this goes, you crazy kids.

-La Editor

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	2. Happy As A Clam

Title: Happy as a Clam  
Theme: Inside  
Summary: Yuna's secret hideaway is right between '101 Ways Not to Kidnap Dalmations' and 'Cooking Paopu with Side-Effects Included.'

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Happy as a Clam

Yuna is content.

She is sitting in her secret place, a little niche between books on the highest part of the bookshelf tucked away in the corner's of Merlin's magic house. The window is right in front of her, and she likes looking out to watch.

Yuna doesn't know many people anymore - compared to back then - back then she knew too many people, so many - too many - and if she's honest with herself, it's a little lonely. She misses Tidus, lots. But it isn't bad, either. And right here - right here, in her little spot with the sun warming her insides pink, she's happy. Everything is different and strange here and Yuna wants to lock it in a box and she wants to fly on top of it like a summer kite.

It was Hollow Bastion, but now Radiant Gardens - she likes the name, too. She could get used to it and probably will, and she looks out the window and spies Rikku and Auron, Rikku and Auron who are sitting out on the ruined bailey. She knows because she can see a splash of blonde against his red coat.

She isn't _spying _or anything. She just happens to be looking where Rikku and Auron are sitting.

Yuna wonders how things were before the Heartless came to their world. And she supposes it doesn't matter much, anyway.

Either way, looking at them lights her up like a firefly because she feels hope and it's radiating off of the flowers, welcome to Radiant Gardens, and it is strange and different and beautiful.

Yuna smiles and stretches across the wood, shutting her eyes and dreaming of days long since passed.


	3. Up

This is what happens when you simultaneously find something you wrote back in July and are avoiding NaNoWriMo like the plague.

Title: Up  
Theme: 76; growing up  
Summary: Children don't stay Children forever.

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Up

Once-upon-a-time-therewasalittleboy

And he was a little boy, just a little boy to the world to the sky to the rocks, and he was quiet for a little boy but made up for it with energy and smiles and life, pure life and then one day his precious people died and he didn't smile anymore and-then-he-forgothowtoand

Once-upon-a-time-therewasalittlefairy

And she was a fairy princess because she wanted to be and she was brighter than the sun and couldn't seem to live without noise, lots of noise like noise of birds or people or nature or machinery at work, and then she lost some friends but smiled anyway because it-made-her-feel-better-sortofbutnotreally

Andthentheybothcriedalotandthenandthen

-

Once upon a time there was a little boy who didn't smile, and once upon a time there was a little fairy who only smiled on the outside.

Once upon a time the fairy met the little boy by accident, because she flew right into his lonely little room like a firefly when the moon was out because if she was anything, she was a princess and if you asked her the title would be Fairy-Princess of Thieves and All Machina Anywhere, and she was looking for treasure all by her lonesome because she couldn't find her friends and that made her sad

and the little boy saw her and then they talked.

They didn't have very much in common.

The fairy was so vivid that it made the little boy uncomfortable to be so close, and the little boy was quiet, so quiet, that it made the pretend-fairy-princess want to shake him around a little and his room was so bare that there wasn't much worth taking so she left, and the boy went back to bed

andthenshe came back

Because they were both sortoflonely lots and lots and maybe they could be friends, would you like that she asked and he tried to smile-but-couldn't-andshesmiledenoughforthebothofthem

And things were alright.

Once upon a time there was a little boy with a little fairy who would tell you she was a thief and a princess to boot and do you have any treasure she could borrow, only for a little while of course – and they were the best of friends, little boy and tiny little fairy, tiny, because she couldn't hold her human-like form for very long and soon left off trying altogether because they were comfortable and went on adventures together, lots of them, and the first time the little boy picked up a sword was the first time her smile dimmed a little, just a little and he noticed but didn't say anything and they both brushed it off and went home.

The little boy met other people because he was not afraid of company so much anymore and the fairy began looking for her friends again but they stayed close because that's what friends do. And they had many more adventures, countless and each one more daring than the last – reckless escapades and close encounters were laughed off, because we laugh in the face of danger she said and then went right ahead with 'hahaha,' and it made him smile because he didn't smile much but things were getting better.

The first time she heard him laugh was when she owed up and told him that no, she _wasn't _over twenty-bajillion years old and was actually twenty-seven, twelve-years-old in comparison and she shouted indignantly and repeatedly yelled that little fairy-princesses grew up _much_ faster than silly old humans but he laughed and laughed and laughed and she thought that it was one of life's little moments that really make it precious.

The first time the little boy saw the fairy smile a full-out grin, dopey and sappy and _real_, was when they found a hard spot on the ground and brushed it off to find the top of a buried treasure box. They were so excited about what was inside that they spent an entire afternoon whispering and shouting and dancing around so happily that when they unburied it and found loose string and a bright yellow paperclip, they both stared dumbfounded. Then they started chuckling and giggling, turning to full out laughter as she swiped the bright big paperclip and announced loudly that it was their Special Friendship Ring-Thing and bent it likewise, and he thought that the princess-fairy's smile could fuel the entire sky for millions of years and they laughed and then he flopped onto the ground and she settled onto his little nine-year-old stomach.

-

Once-upon-a-time-therewasalittleboyandafairyprincess

And little boys grow up, and little fairies get restless. Soon he was twelve, fourteen and then seventeen and she had grown up some too but he was suddenly much, much older and wooden sticks were replaced with metal, and carefree days were replaced with training and grass bracelets were traded out for armor, and they tried to pretend nothing had changed because she braided his ponytail and he found pebbles small enough for her to skip across the ocean but it _did, _it did change and then one day the darkness came and she was handling her own when right before he killed it the darkness – the ant, monster-ant darkness yellow eyes – the darkness had claws and then his _eye, _oh _gawd_ his dark wood eye was cut straight down the middle and bleeding, bleedingsomuchandhewouldn'tbeherlittleboyanymoreeveragaingainever

And she cried while she healed him, fixed him up nice and good and then she dug up the stupid old Special Friendship-Ring-Thing and unbent it a bit and twisted it to latch onto his shoulder armor, over a red coat he had taken to wearing, one with lots of pockets that she had ridden in so many times, lots. And then one day he pulled her out of his coat-pocket as dawn came willy-nilly, gentle like rice paper and sand and he held her in his palm, in his palm that used to be real small in comparison and told her it was time for him to go fight for his world with the rest of the village men – boys, they were only boys pretending, to her, but he had to and one eye looked at her and she nodded and it _hurt, _it hurt lots because they had needed each other and that was nice so she smiled big for him and hugged him round the neck, hard as she could and kissed his nose for good luck and then finally left that world as he hefted his sword onto his shoulder to walk

and neither looked back as Rikku disappeared and darkness swallowed Auron whole.

-

"I don't remember our world," Yuna stated once, licking the ice cream off of her fingers thoughtfully as Paine amused herself by carving the bare wooden popsicle stick into a sword and Rikku finished her own bit of the treat.

Aerith was sitting near them at Merlin's house as Cid and Leon sat at the computer and Yuffie was god-knows-where, and she said, she said, "do you wish you did?"

And the fairy shrugged good-naturedly, Yuna-esque. She was a little less demure and still always so willing to go with the flow, and she was less quiet which made Rikku real happy and real sad at the same time because it reminded her of something that she couldn't quite remember until it all came back again like it did so often and she tried not to think about quiet little boys little men and then just quiet men not so little.

"I remember Rikku," and that was a little surprising and then she went on, "but Rikku disappeared. For a long time. We met so many years after that."

Nobody said anything after that and Rikku licked her own fingers and trying-not-to-think-isharderthanitlooks.

-

They both forgot.

No, not forgot, but Rikku's head filled more and more with thoughts of treasure and she finally found those missing fairy-friends and they went on more adventures that were never the same in the end.

No, not forgot, but Auron really was swallowed up and spit out into the underworld and he didn't even get much of a chance at life because it felt like everything was taken away from him in the end.

And little girls forget easy but young women's minds are stronger than that, and Rikku grew up a little and night skies and shooting stars, especially those, made her think of little boys and little men and what friendship must really mean in the end.

And little boys at battle have preoccupied minds but men who feel like they're five hundred years old have all the time in the world to think and those memories were the only ones in all the worlds that could make him smile.

Auron met a boy named Sora, once.

Good kid. Big blue eyes, not green, not green like his fairy-friend because nobody had green eyes anymore, because he like remembering and always wondered about what happened next, and he was tired but belatedly realized that he didn't want to _rest_, so the next time the child with the hair like a starburst popped into the underworld the man said, 'take me with you.'

Rikku met a boy named Sora, once.

Happy, she thought. Always smiling, smiling little boy, not like hers, but warm and she was fine with her friends but she had to ask because this boy had been _everywhere, _a traveler by right and she had never found out, never known and some days she didn't care much and others it ate away at her very core, what happened to her little boy little man, so once when he was visiting she asked, 'you ever met a grump named Auron?'

And the boy said

'Sure, boss'

And the boy said

'Sure do, he's in my airship'

And things evened out, and Auron was asleep on a bunk in the back of the airship. When he woke up, the first thing he noticed was that his cheeks were wet with little droplets that were not his, and that there was a little fairy sitting on him and they stared at each other stupidly before she punched his nose and told him that he bent their Special Friendship Ring-Thing out of shape and should be super-ashamed.

And then they both laughed and laughed until they cried and cried and Rikku-even-showed-off-the-magic-she-couldn't-do-beforeandtackledhimhumantohuman, and then she kissed his eye because she-didn't-do-anythingandwasstillrealsorry.

And then they were quiet for a long, long time and just sat.

-

"I don't remember our world," Yuna stated once, licking the ice cream off of her fingers thoughtfully as Auron sharpened his sword and Rikku sat on his shoulder, fiddling with a little, tiny piece of metal that was cut long ago by a rusty sword that she was bending to make a bracelet because it wouldn't bend small enough to make a ring.

Aerith's lips were upturned and pretty as she said, she said, "do you miss it?"

And Yuna smiled and asked how could she miss something she never had in the first place? And maybe that was a little ironic because Rikku and Auron shared a Look, despite the eye on that side of his face being closed and boy was she still sorry as ever about that, and he put his sword down and Rikku slipped into a coat pocket and Auron said in response, "how do you find things you never really lost?"

"Fate," Aerith offered simply, and it was good enough and they went outside to enjoy the summer.

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End file.
